Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.

Above, please see how to open a bottle of beer with another bottle of beer. I suspect this is harder to do than this guy makes it look (especially for someone like me, who sometimes has a hard time opening a bottle with the device actually designed for opening bottles), but worth a try should the situation arise. (Via Sarah)

Super, the upcoming superhero comedy directed by James Gunn and starring Rainn Wilson, picked up a whole bunch of new cast members, all of whom are unfamiliar to me... except the mighty Nathan Fillion. This movie just got a lot more interesting.

Yes, this straight-to-DVD Sherlock Holmes movie is probably garbage... but it's steampunk Sherlock Holmes versus a bunch of monsters attacking London! And the monsters seem to include a T. Rex, a dragon, and a giant squid! That's hot.

Hulk confused by beer commercials that emphasize how cold beer is, and brag about fancy cans and bottles that change colors when beer is cold. Hulk can make beer cold by putting beer in refrigerator. Hulk can tell beer is cold by touching bottle. Do puny humans not have these powers??

Geek Dad uncovers more plot holes in your favorite geeky movies in part 2 of his Top 10 Unanswered Questions in Geeky Movies. Some of these I'd never thought of before and are now really bothering me! Especially the one about Marty not disappearing in Back to the Future 2. The one about the Empire trying to kill the heroes on the Death Star can be explained by assuming that the tracking device plan was sort of a last minute thing, or more of a backup plan. But I'm glad somebody else is bothered by Obi-Wan "hiding" Luke with his family members, under his real name. That's bothered me for some time. It makes no sense. Spider-Man 2 is just one giant plot hole, so mentioning a specific issue is pretty pointless. (Sorry, I hate the Spider-Man movies.) But I think you can explain away item #1 by assuming that R2-D2 is an expert hacker, and #3 by assuming that the Force was taking a hand (which is kind of my standard excuse for nearly any plot hole I find in Star Wars).

"Rumors are that, as part of the creation of DC Entertainment, DC Comics will move to LA, breaking New York's hold on the Big Two comic publishers for the first time ever." That makes me sad. The end of an era!

More details on Epic Mickey: it'll be Wii exclusive, and the story is about forgotten Disney characters who have grown bitter after years of being ignored and have thus spread evil black goo all over the world. Mickey has to use paint, thinner, and erasers to draw his way through the world. I like!

Is this Showgirls 2 website for real? It claims we've all been waiting for a sequel to the horrid original, and also that said sequel will be called Showgirls: The Story of Hope. Wow. All the site has on it at the moment is a lengthy video of truly poor quality featuring equally poor quality music, and nudity. So, yeah, NSFW. Also not safe for those with good taste. (Via)

Apparently Edgar Allan Poe's first funeral was a colossal disaster, so they're giving him a do-over on his 200th birthday (uh, why not on the anniversary of his original funeral?). And because there's not enough left of his actual body to bury, they're making a fake one for the purpose.

Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.

Clever idea: a Darth Vader Wii sensor bar holder! The only problem is, I doubt most people have space for this thing on top of, or directly under, their TVs, which is where the sensor bar has to go. I certainly don't. (Via)

Rather disturbing news: DNA analysis on the skull fragment presumed to belong to Adolf Hitler has proven that it came from a female aged anywhere between 20 and 40 years of age. It could be Eva Braun's, but it's definitely not Hitler's. So... what happened to Hitler??? Obviously the most likely explanation is that he died the way we thought he did, his body just wasn't where we thought it was. But other more unsettling explanations also present themselves.

More footage from the Iron Man 2 set. The focus this time is entirely on Mickey Rourke, although they never actually talk to him; they just talk to other people about him. Gwyneth Paltrow says he's "trippy." Heh.

Remember how I was just saying how extremely effed up the advertising is for the PlayStation? Case in point: here are a couple of new ads, one featuring a gamer giving blood to a Nazi officer, and another featuring a gamer giving his heart to Joan of Arc. What does that even mean???

So you know how in infomercials they always show you this imaginary problem that their product solves, and the scene where the problem is reenacted is always filmed in nightmarish black and white? Here's a collection of all of those scenes! It's Infomercial Hell. (Via)

Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.

The big news on the internet today is Disney buying Marvel. Here's the official Marvel press release on the story, a reassuring tweet on the subject from editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, and more details from Comic Book Resources. I have to say, despite the hands-off approach that Disney seems to be espousing in the latter link, this doesn't make me very happy. On the one hand, I'm pleased to see Marvel (probably my favorite comics publisher) get a lot of money and appreciation, and get access to the power and resources that a company like Disney can offer. But on the other hand, I'm worried that Disney will end up influencing the content that Marvel puts out in a very negative way. Even if Disney doesn't censor the books directly, the creators could end up censoring their work themselves due to perceived pressure from the corporate parent. Plus, are they going to try to integrate Disney characters into the Marvel Universe? In some cases, I can see how that could be fun (takeMODUCK, for example, via & via), but it could also be really ridiculous and terrible. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Starting this fall, Wikipedia will offer a new optional feature: "WikiTrust." With this turned on, every word of every entry will be color coded based on the reliability of the author and the length of time the text has persisted on the page.

Trailers! Who doesn't love them? We have The Men Who Stare at Goats, Inception, and The Descent: Part Two. I'm of two minds about Goats. The premise, about a secret government project to create psychic soldiers, is certainly interesting, but the movie's a dark comedy, and it looks like the comedy occasionally falls flat. And if even the stuff they put in the trailer isn't funny, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the movie. Christopher Nolan's Inception, on the other hand, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, looks amazingly weird and fascinating. As for The Descent 2, it looks like they took everything interesting from the first movie and stripped it away, leaving just another lame movie about people getting torn apart by monsters in the dark. (Via)

TxtNinja sounds handy. It turns text into images that are readable by people, but not by evil spambots. (Via)

Hulk glad to hear Obama, Gates, and Officer Crowley (hmm, sound like supervillain name to Hulk) sitting down and drinking beers together. Although fact that Obama drinking pathetic, watery Bud Light should be proof that puny humans made wrong choice and Obama not strong, wise president America needs. President Hulk wouldn't be drinking Bud Light at President Hulk's beer summit, that for sure.

Of course, if Hulk sat down to make peace with Hulk's enemies over beers, summit would probably not go well. Leader and MODOK would most likely demand non-alcoholic beer, to keep big brains from getting fuzzy, Abomination would make fun of them, and things would go downhill from there.

...an amusing event took place at the time that I've somehow failed to mention yet. I must record it now for posterity. The short, funny version is: we got smashed on a pitcher of margaritas and then went to K-Mart. The longer, less funny version follows.

One night, poppy, my brother (hereafter referred to as Stee), his wife (hereafter referred to as Ev), and myself went out together on a "double date," leaving my folks at home to look after my niece. We ended up at what turned out to be a pretty awesome Mexican restaurant (La Fogata) and started working our way through a pitcher of margaritas. When we discovered we were all getting drunk, poppy was good enough to designate herself as the driver and stop partaking. When we finished dinner, it was suddenly decided that we should all go shopping. The most likely place seemed to be a surprisingly large and well-stocked K-Mart that was on our way home. When we got there, Stee and I wandered off to the firearms department, where we discovered they were selling a handgun in plastic clamshell packaging. Stee decided this was their form of gun control: once you bought it, you'd never be able to open the packaging in order to use it. We caught up with the women in the toys department where Stee and Ev were delighted to discover Race to the Mall, a questionable and yet somehow awesome Polly Pocket toy racetrack they'd been searching for for some time - ostensibly for their child, but they were pretty excited about it for themselves, it seemed to me, and even tried to assemble it later on that night.

Apparently I'm pretty popular because I ended up going to three parties in as many days this weekend. At these parties, I ate much grilled food and drank plenty of beer, as is customary. I very much enjoyed all three events, so many thanks to all the party-throwers.

At the EverMike/Zoe/SuperTarzan party, I also got to try Rock Band. It is awesome. A brilliant update and extension of the Guitar Hero concept. The addition of extra instruments, singing, and solos was a very smart move. When you and three other people cooperate to successfully play a song, it really feels like you've accomplished something great together. The drums were much harder than I expected to play, but I had already gotten much better at them by the end of the night. I want to buy it when it comes out for Wii, but poppy is trying to convince me to just enjoy other people's copies of the game. I'll let you know how that turns out.

About
Welcome to the blog of Jim Genzano, writer, web developer, husband, father, and enjoyer of things like the internet, movies, music, games, and books. For a more detailed run-down of who I am and what goes on here, read this.